By
Dee Jay Gordon

So let's think about this for a minute: it's okay to
send our young men and women in the military off to war,
where they may be maimed or killed, but it's not okay for
them to take part in some silly initiation ceremony. I'm
talking, of course, about the Marine paratroopers who get
"blood pinned" after their 10th jump. The TV
scandal shows made a very big deal out of this hazing
ritual, showing footage of Marines pounding and grinding
the pin into the chests of the newbies. And, yes, it
looked disgusting and barbaric. So I called a buddy of
mine who happens to be a Marine paratrooper to ask if he
was "pinned" in such a manner.
"Absolutely," he replied, "It's an honor
to wear the golden wings, and all the men who jumped knew
that when they hit 10, they'd be 'punched in'."

Hazing rituals are as much a part of our culture as
peanut butter and jelly. The frat houses do it, the
military does it, any time you get a group of guys
together as part of an elite group, there will be hazing.
Hazing sends the message "you could take it so
you're one of us now". It's a bonding experience.
Yes, most of the time it's painful, and that's because
guys seem to get excited over how much pain they can
take. It makes them feel macho and cool. My personal
thought is that if they want to really test their mettle,
they should give birth. But I digress...

Is hazing violent and dangerous? Sometimes. But the
thrill of the hazing is in being able to brag that you
made it through. It's a guy thing. Women don't do that.
When my niece "became a woman", my sister and I
hazed her by taking her shopping and buying her her first
pair of pantyhose. That's why the female cadets at the
Citadel are having such a hard time getting acclimated.
They don't want to shave their heads so what do you think
the odds are that they want to be whacked on the butt
with a paddle? And, of course, should they be whacked on
the butt with any item at all, that constitutes sexual
harassment, opening up a whole new can of worms.

Hazing instills camaraderie among men who have far
more difficult tasks ahead of them. It's not mandatory,
nobody holds them down and forces them to be hazed.
Nobody brings in a note from Mommy saying "Please
excuse Junior from swallowing live goldfish." It's a
tradition that these men look back on proudly. In the
case of military men, they may go on to be shot at,
dusted with chemicals, lost at sea, taken prisoner by
enemy forces, or have handgrenades hurled at them. Yet
there is public outcry over a boo-boo that can be taken
care of with peroxide and a Band-Aid.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Marine paratroopers,
you had a bunch of hyped up guys who didn't know when to
stop. Even more unfortunate, they were caught on
videotape being stupid and the media got hold of it. But
I find it interesting that this "breach of
security" hasn't sparked a wave of scar-chested men,
coming out of the closet to cry about the barbaric
treatment they received at the hands of their fellow
paratroopers. However, many "pinned" men went
public to say that they knew about the initiation and
went for it anyway, not traumatized in the least by
getting poked. That's what I like about men...they take
their lumps to become what they want to be, not crying or
complaining, just accepting it as part of the process. I
respect that. It's just a shame that the media and the
rest of the wanna-be's can't respect it also.